South Carolina governor orders special redistricting session after state senators defied Trump – US politics live

President Trump, his family and the Trump Organization do not play a role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments made in his name, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization told Guardian US. They are not asked for inputs regarding the investment decision, the spokesperson said in response to questions about portfolio management raised after Trump’s ethics filings revealed thousands of trades tried to US stocks.

“President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions,” said the spokesperson.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit the US this fall, at the invitation of President Trump, Wang Yi, a top Chinese diplomat said, as reported by Xinhua, Chinese state media.

“The man I am walking with is President Xi, of China, one of the World’s Great Leaders!” posted Trump on Truth Social along with a photo on Friday morning after departing from China.

Trump also brought up the widely discussed White House ballroom in the post. “China has a Ballroom, and so should the U.S.A.! It’s under construction, ahead of schedule, and will be the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the U.S.A.,” he said, adding that the opening would be around September 2028.

Kurt Campbell, regarded as the architect of Barack Obama’s China policy, who attended 15 China summits, said Xi’s reference to the Thucydides trap, would have not have gone down well with Trump, portraying the US as a falling nation.

“It is rare in a summit like that, that a relatively obscure academic concept captures some of the moment, but President Xi bringing up Thucydides’ Trap, and the concept of a rising and falling nation, and how hegemonic transitions take place, really got under the president’s skin,” he said.

Thousands of US stock trades surfaced in Donald Trump’s ethics filing on Thursday afternoon. Trump disclosed at least $220m in financial dealings in the securities of dominant American companies this year, including Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Oracle, Broadcom, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, as first reported by Reuters.

The value of the transactions were reported in ranges and could be as high as approximately $750m, according to two financial disclosure forms shared by the US Office of Government Ethics.

Some large purchases, valued under $5m, included an S&P 500 Index fund, Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, while large sales, valued at more than $5m, included Microsoft, Amazon and Meta.

The White House press office referred questions about who placed the trades to the Trump Organization. Other details, such as the types of securities traded, were also unclear in the filings.

Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s Republican governor, signed an executive order on Thursday ordering a special redistricting session ahead of the midterm elections.

This comes after state senators in South Carolina bucked Donald Trump’s demands earlier this week to approve plans to redraw the state’s congressional map after the supreme court gutted a key section of the Voting Rights Act.

The president had urged them to back the redistricting proposal on Monday evening. The US president would be “watching closely”, he wrote on social media, adding: “GET IT DONE!”

“We appreciate Governor McMaster’s leadership in ensuring South Carolina addresses congressional redistricting,” said Drew McKissick, the state’s Republican party chair. “Thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, Republicans have an opportunity to get this done, and we should maximize it. Now is the time for lawmakers to stand with President Trump, defend the Constitution, and finish the job.”

The Friday session will focus on whether to redraw the state’s map to essentially get rid of the majority-minority district that Democrat currently James Clyburn represents. However, a number of South Carolina Republicans fear that mid-decade redistricting would actually weaken GOP voting power in newly-drawn districts.

• Donald Trump has departed Beijing after a two-day summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

• Trump said that during the visit he and Xi discussed a wide array of topics, with the conflict with Iran one of the most pressing. He claims that the US and China agreed that Iran should not have be able to produce nuclear weapons and that the strait of Hormuz must be opened as soon as possible, while also stating that he would consider ending sanctions on Chinese companies that bought Iranian oil.

• He also told reporters that he would be “OK” with Iran suspending their nuclear programme for 20 years, but only if they do so with “a real commitment”, while claiming that Iran’s missile capabilities had been reduced by 80% and described reports to the contrary as “treasonous”.

• Despite not agreeing on a large number of deals, Trump claims that China have agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets from the US, with a further 550 jets also possibly being bought at a later date, and said that they had also agreed to purchase “billions of dollars” of soybeans in a deal that he described as a big win for American farmers.

• Discussions also took place around China releasing 30 pastors who were arrested in late 2025 for being members of the Protestant Beijing Zion church. Despite this, Trump did not say that steps had been made to release Jimmy Lai, a political prisoner from Hong Kong who was sentenced to 20 years in jail for collusion and sedition.

• The issue of Taiwan was also discussed “a lot” according to Trump, but the president declined to elaborate on the details of these discussions or the position his government would take. Taiwan, which is engaged with a protracted conflict with China as each nation claims sovereign over the other, has historically received unofficial support from the US, and is one of its largest trading partners.

On Iran, Trump claimed that he would be open to them suspending their nuclear program for 20 years, but that it had to be done with a “real commitment”.

Speaking to journalists onboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington, Trump also denied reports that Iran still had a high capacity to use missiles, claiming that their missile stockpile was 80% gone as a result of the US military campaign which began in late February. Trump claimed that those reports were fake, and singled out a journalist from the New York Times whose work he described as “treasonous”.

Additionally, Trump said, having discussed it with Xi, he would consider lifting sanctions on Chinese companies that bought Iranian oil, and that he would make a decision on the matter soon.

Around the same time Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, said that US had been in contact with Iran to say that they were seeking to continue talks, and that his country were prepared to pursue either a diplomatic or militaristic route in order to end the conflict.

More topics discussed during the US-China summit have been revealed by the US president, with Trump claiming that he and Xi also spoke about North Korea, fentanyl and the possible release of 30 pastors from the Beijing Zion Church who were arrested in 2025.

Trump also doubled down on his assertion that China had agreed to buy 200 Boeing jets, with the potential for that number to rise to 750, and stated that they would also be buying “billion of dollars” of soybeans.

Donald Trump has said that he and Chinese president Xi Jinping spoke about Taiwan, but that he did make not a commitment to his policy on the country.

Taiwan is a contentious topic in China, with both countries claiming sovereignty over the other, but Trump stated that he did not believe that there was a conflict in Taiwan and refused to clarify his stance on the struggle between the two countries, telling reporters that he had not thrown his support behind either side and stating “we’re not trying to have wars”.

The issue was brought up while with Xi in China, with Trump responding to questions about the hostility by simply saying “China is beautiful”.

The Chinese markets have fallen after the US-China summit that took place in Beijing, despite Donald Trump touting new business deals between the two countries.

China’s blue-chip CSI300 Index and the Shanghai Composite Index each fell more than 1%, while The Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.6%.

Big deals between the two superpowers had been expected, but the only agreements that came out of Trump’s two day trip were arrangements for US oil and soybean, as well as unconfirmed deal for China to purchase 200 Boeing jets.

If you’re just catching up, these ere are the latest developments from Trump’s summit with Xi:

• Trump declared that numerous deals had been struck between the US and China, including China buying 200 Boeing jets as well as US oil and soybeans. This deal has not been confirmed by either China or Boeing.

• Trump also stated that the he and Xi discussed Iran, with the president claiming that the two agreed that Iran should never be able to possess nuclear weapons and that the strait of Hormuz must be opened as soon as possible.

• No progress appears to have been made over the fate of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong pro democracy activist who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for collusion and sedition.

• Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, told Bloomberg TV that an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China is expected after Trump’s visit to Beijing.

Despite Donald Trump’s claims over the success of his trip to China and the deals he achieved during it, doubt remains over whether the agreements he made will come to fruition.

When asked during a Friday morning briefing if China had in fact agreed to buy the 200 Boeing jets claimed by Trump, a spokesperson simply pointed towards that the “important consensus” that both sides had achieved during the visit and stated that the “essence of China-U.S. economic and trade relations is mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.”

Boeing themselves have not confirmed details of any order.

Donald Trump has left China after a two-day summit with President Xi Jinping that failed to live up to the hype.

What will be remembered from this trip is Xi’s dark warning of “clashes and even conflicts” with the US if the status of Taiwan is not handled as he sees fit – and Trump’s failure to push back in even a subtle way.

Indeed, past US presidents have come to China with an approach reminiscent of Britain’s King Charles III’s recent visit to Washington: gracious and diplomatic but making some coded points about western democracy that were undeniable to those paying attention.

But Trump, a would-be strongman, crumbled in the presence of the real thing and was deferential throughout, using the word “beautiful” over and over. The only upside is that he did not alienate his hosts or blow up their fragile trade truce.

Trump achieved underwhelming deals for China to buy US oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing aircraft and claims to have agreed with Xi that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon – hardly a major revelation. The presence of his son Eric, who runs the family business, smacked of corruption, and it was not entirely clear what the accompanying tech titans achieved apart from Elon Musk gurning for the cameras.

Trump now returns to a world of domestic pain in the US, with his brief China vacation soon to be forgotten. But the symbolism for Xi and the watching world was unmistakable: a rising power in the east and a declining one in the west.

Donald Trump has now boarded Air Force One at Beijing Airport after spending around two hours in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound speaking and speaking privately with Xi Jinping.

The president was accompanied to the airport by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi where a red carpet to awaited him, and sent off by dozens of schoolchildren, who waved American and Chinese flags and chanted “farewell” in unison.

In case you’re just joining us, here’s a recap of the day’s events as Donald Trump and Xi Jinping wrap up the second and final day of talks in their much-anticipated two-day summit. It’s 2pm in Beijing.

• The US president said “a lot of good” came from his China visit and “we’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve”. “We’ve made some fantastic trade deals for both countries,” Trump said while sitting next to Xi in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound, where they were to hold their final talks of the summit.

• Trump also said: “We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar about [how] we want it to end. We don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the strait open.”

• US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”. “It’s been pretty consistent across multiple presidential administrations, and remains consistent now,” he told NBC News.

• The White House said Trump and Xi had agreed during their talks on the need to keep the strait of Hormuz open. Trump said separately that his patience with Iran was running out, as a ship was reportedly seized by Iran off the United Arab Emirates. “I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump told Fox News. “They should make a deal.”

• Trump also said hunting down Iran’s enriched uranium was primarily for political optics, after Israel demanded it as a goal. “I just feel better if I got it, actually, but it’s – I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else,” Trump told Fox News from China.

• US trade representative Jamieson Greer told Bloomberg TV the US believed China was being “very pragmatic” in respect to its involvement with Iran, and that he was confident Beijing would do whatever it could to limit material support for Tehran.

• Greer also said an agreement for double-digit billions of dollars in agriculture sales to China was expected after the Beijing summit. Asked by Bloomberg if the year-long trade truce with China expiring this October would be extended as a result of the Beijing summit, he said: “We’ll see about that … there’s certainly a willingness on both sides that – if this continues to work out well for each country – to continue that…”

• The US is hoping for a positive response from China on Washington’s appeals for the release of jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai and others, Marco Rubio told NBC.

Asian stocks mostly retreated on Friday as investors watched for developments from the Trump-Xi summit and the Iran war.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% after rising earlier in the day. South Korea’s Kospi lost 3.2%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 0.9%, the Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% and Australia’s S+P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1%.

Taiwan’s Taiex traded 0.5% lower and India’s Sensex was up 0.1%.

While there is optimism over US-China relations, some analysts are suggesting any deals should be viewed cautiously, the AP reports.

“Headline deals should be looked at with a healthy degree of scepticism,” wrote Leahy Fahy and Julian Evans-Pritchard, China economists at Capital Economics, in a Friday note.

A number of the promised projects and investments that came out of US-China deals from Donald Trump’s last China visit in 2017 did not end up materialising, they said, as tensions between Washington and Beijing elevated rapidly during the few years after that.

Oil prices climbed early on Friday amid the stalled US-Iran talks over the war, with brent crude – the international standard – 1.3% higher at $107.06 per barrel.